SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE.
Meaning of "Delighted" in some Places of Shakspeare.—I am sorry to be obliged to differ so often in opinion with H. C. K., but as we are both, I trust, solely actuated by the love of truth, he no doubt will excuse me. My difference now with him is about "delighted spirit," by which he understands the "tender delicate spirit," while I take it to be the "delectable" or "delightful spirit." As I think this is founded on the Latin, I beg permission to quote the following portion of my note on Jug. ii. 3. in my edition of Sallust:
"Incorruptus, ἄφθαρτος , i. e. incapable of dissolution, the incorruptibilis of the Fathers of the Church. In imitation probably of the Greek verbal adjective in τος, as αἱρετός, στρεπτός, etc., the Latins, especially Sallust, sometimes used the past part. as equivalent to an adj. in bilis: comp. xliii, 5.; lxxvi. 1.; xci. 7.; Cat. I. 4.,
'Non exorato stant adamante viæ;' Propert. IV. 11. 4.,
'Mare scopulis inaccessum;' Plin. Nat. Hist., XII. 14.
It is in this sense that flexus is to be understood in Virg. Æn., v. 500."
The same employment of the past part. is frequent in our old English writers, and I rather think that they adopted it from the Latin. The earliest instance which I find in my notes is from Golding, who renders the tonitrus et inevitabile fulmen of Ovid (Met. III. 301.):
"With dry and dreadful thunderclaps and lightning to the same,
Of deadly and unavoided dint."
In Milton I have noticed the following participles used in this sense: unmoved, abhorred, unnumbered, unapproached, dismayed, unreproved, unremoved, unsucceeded, preferred. But as Milton was addicted to Latinising, I will give some examples from Shakspeare himself:
"Now thou art come unto a feast of death
A terrible and unavoided danger."—1 Hen. VI., Act IV. Sc. 5.
"We see the very wreck that we must suffer,
And unavoided the danger now,
For suffering so the causes of our wreck."—Rich. II., Act II. Sc. 1.
"All unavoided is the doom of destiny."—Rich. III., Act IV. Sc. 4.
"Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels."—Ib., Act I. Sc. 4.
"Tell them that when my mother went with child
Of that insatiate Edward."—Ib., Act III. Sc. 5.
"I am not glad that such a sore of time
Should seek a plaster by contemned revolt."—King John, Act V. Sc 2.
"The murmuring surge
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes."—Lear, Act IV. Sc. 6.
"O, undistinguished space of woman's will."—Ib.
I could give instances from Spenser and even from Pope, but shall only observe that when we say "an undoubted fact" we mean an indubitable one.
Thos. Keightley.
P.S.—I am not disposed to quarrel with H. C. K.'s derivation of awkward (Vol. viii., p. 310.), but I must observe that the more exact correlative of toward seems to be wayward. The Anglo-Saxons appear to have pronounced their ȝ as g; but after the Conquest it was pronounced hard in some cases, and so wayward and awkward may have the same origin.
Shakspeare Portrait.—Can any of your correspondents state whether the sign of Shakspeare, said to have been painted at a cost of 150l., and which in 1764 graced a tavern then in Drury Lane, called "The Shakspeare," and in that year was taken down and removed into the country, and used for a similar purpose, still exists, add where? and is the artist who painted such known?
Charlecott.
"Taming of the Shrew."—I cannot help thinking that Christopher Sly merely means that he is fourteenpence on the score for sheer ale,—nothing but ale; neither bread nor meat, horse housing, or bed.
He has drunk the entire amount, and glories in his iniquity, like a true tippler.
G. H. K.
Lord Bacon and Shakspeare.—Can any of those correspondents of "N. & Q." who have devoted attention to the lives of two of England's greatest worthies, Francis Bacon and William Shakspeare, account for the extraordinary fact that, although these two highly gifted men were cotemporaries, no mention of or allusion to the other is to be found in the writings of either? Bacon was born in 1561, and died in 1626; Shakspeare, who was born in 1563, and died ten years before the great chancellor, not only loved
"To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy,"
but breathes throughout every page of his wondrous writings a spirit of philosophy as profound as his imagination is unlimited; yet nowhere, it is believed, can he be traced as making the slight allusion to the great father of modern philosophy. Bacon, on the other hand, whom one can scarcely suppose to have been ignorant of the writings of the dramatist, but who indeed may rather be believed to have known him personally, seems altogether to ignore his existence, or the existence of any of his matchless works. As the solution of this problem could not but throw much light on that most interesting subject,—the history of the minds of Shakespeare and Bacon,—I venture to throw it out as a fit subject for the research of some of your contributors versed in the writings of these great spirits of their own age, no less than of all time.
Theta.